The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India ( Irdai) has asked insurers to give at least two months’ notice to customers before closure or relocation of their places of business. In its places of business regulations, Irdai said closure or relocation of the places of business within India by insurers would be after due consideration of all the factors, including possible inconvenience to policy holders. Business Standard, New Delhi, 26th August 2015

RBI feels Inflation Indexed Bonds are no longer the most vital measure of price; such bonds worth Rs 6,500 cr issued since launch The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested to the finance ministry that the government buy back Inflation Indexed Bonds (IIBs) linked to the wholesale price index (WPI), reasoning that this is no longer the most important measure of prices. Such bonds worth . 6,500 crore have been issued since ` their 2013 launch.“We are studying the matter and will look at various options on how this can be done, either through the secondary market or some other mechanism,“ a government official said, confirming the central bank's suggestion. The central bank adopted the consumer price index (CPI) as the key measure of inflation last year and WPIbased securities haven't been reissued since then. Besides, wholesale inflation has been negative for the last nine months, reducing the attractiveness of the instrument. “There is a lot of pressure from some market partic…

The government on Tuesday indicated it might go in for promulgation of the land ordinance for a record fourth time to maintain its “continunity”, as there was no possibility of passage of a Bill in Parliament to replace it before August 31, when the executive measure would expire. Business Standard, New Delhi, 26th August 2015

The Union Cabinet is expected to take up the proposal of promulgating an ordinance to amend the Negotiable Instruments Act on Wednesday. a move that would help fasttrack resolutions of cases of bouncing cheques and remove the ambiguities on judicial issues. It would allow filing of cases against the issuer of these cheques.The credibility of cheque as a financial instrument is expected to go up with this move which would also help trade and commerce in general and allow the lending institutions to continue to extend loans, without fear of default on account of bouncing of a cheque. Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 26th August 2015

Committee may have three government nominees and four from the RBI, with the governor as chairman The government has moved a cabinet note on the creation of a monetary policy committee (MPC) as part of plans to reset a framework for this in line with international best practices. The committee is likely to have three government nominees and four from the Reserve Bank of India, with the governor as chairman.There may not be any veto for the governor but the person will have a casting vote in case of a tie. A government official confirmed that the note had been moved by the finance ministry after it completed inter-ministerial consultations on the proposal. The establishment of the committee will mark a radical shift in how monetary policy is decided in India, making it transparent than it is now. Currently, the RBI governor de cides monetary policy and the board only has an advisory role. Finance minister Arun Jaitley had, in his February budget speech, announced the new monetary policy fram…

The Reserve Bank of India ( RBI) has said while attempting to define the financial regulator’s responsibilities, the revised draft Indian Financial Code (IFC) leaves various issues unaddressed. “The policymakers are expected to carry out this responsibility within a broad set of principles and an understanding shaped by various adaptive learning processes. It is difficult to codify this into a set of simple rules/ laws. The draft Indian Financial Code, though an ambitious attempt in this direction, leaves large gaps unaddressed,” RBI Deputy Governor H R Khan said at the 16th FIMMDA- PDAI annual conference at Prague on August 17. “Any exercise to reshape the legislative architecture of the financial sector should evolve organically, starting with an objective reassessment of where the current system has failed. This is particularly important when many open- ended policy issues are being debated internationally,” he said. In the last week of July, the government had placed the revised draf…